Interprofessional Initiative Drives Educational Revolution at OHSU

Students who entered School of Nursing programs in the fall of 2013 are now sharing their educational world with students from dentistry, medicine, nutrition, pharmacy, physician assistant, and radiation therapy programs.

Driven by changes in health care delivery, the program-based model of health education is being augmented by a curriculum that is intentional in its goal of training health care professionals to operate as a team. Engaging both students and faculty in shared teaching, learning and practice environments, OHSU's new Interprofessional Initiative (IPI) has been designed with the explicit purpose of improving collaboration and allowing students to learn to work with colleagues at the highest scope of their professional capacity to collectively improve care for patients.

Judith Baggs, RN, PhD, Elizabeth N. Gray Distinguished Professor, School of Nursing, serves on the Interprofessional Initiative Steering Committee charged with making team-based, patient-centered care the new standard. "This is an important initiative for nursing education," she says. "Our students are learning with, from, and about students from other programs, preparing them for clinical practice when they will be working together. You wouldn't train members of a sports team separately and then expect them to work as a team. Additionally and importantly, our faculty have been very involved in facilitating these student experiences. We are all learning together."

Are you currently working in an interprofessional environment or as part of an interprofessional team? What advice would you share with students engaged in the new initiative? Let us know at alumni@ohsu.edu.

More information about OHSU's Interprofessional Initiative is available here.